History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Has history been tampered with?.......2007-10-23

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RAZQNMXM4M9CL Has history been tampered with? Yes, it has! Did events and eras such as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Roman Empire , the Dark Ages, and the Renaissance, actually occur within a very different chronology from what we've been told? Yes, they certainly did!

The history of humankind is both drastically shorter and dramatically different than generally presumed.

Why is it so? On one hand, it was usual custom to justify the claims to title and land by age and ancestry, and on the other the court historians knew only too well how to please their masters. The so called universal classic world history is a pack of intricate lies for all events prior to the 16th century. World history as we learn it today was entirely fabricated in the 16th-18th centuries. It's likely that nobody told you before, but

there is not a single piece of firm written evidence or artefact that is reliably and independently dated prior to the 11th century.

Naturally, after what you've learned in school and university, you will not easily believe that the classical history of ancient Rome, Greece, Asia, Egypt, China, Japan, India, etc., is manifestly false.

You will point accusing finger to the pyramids in Egypt, to the Coliseum in Rome and Great Wall of China etc., and claim, aren't they really ancient, thousands of years ancient? Well, there is no valid scientific proof that they are older than 1000 years!

The oldest original written document that can be reliably dated belongs to the 11th century!

New research asserts that Homo sapiens invented writing (including hieroglyphics) only 1000 years ago. Once invented, writing skills were immediately and irreversibly put to the use of ruling powers and science.

The consensual chronology we live with was essentially crafted in the 16th century by the Jesuits.

The world history was compiled from contradictory mix of innumerable copies of ancient Latin and Greek manuscripts and other irrefutable proofs delivered by late mediaeval astronomers that were cemented by the authority of writings of the Church Fathers.

Early in life, we learn about ancient history. Children love the magical lessons of history - they are like fairy tales. Teachers recite breathtaking stories; very soon We learn by heart the names and deeds of brave warriors, wise philosophers, fabulous pharaohs, cunning high priests and greedy scribes.

We learn of gigantic pyramids and sinister castles, kings and queens, dukes and barons, powerful heroes and beautiful ladies, emaciated saints and low-life traitors.

Ancient history is based documents, manuscripts, printed books, paintings, monuments and artefacts - called primary sources.

The problem is that neither these ancient documents, nor events described therein can be irrefutably dated, moreover they contradict each other for the most part.

When a school textbook tells us that Genghis Khan in year X or Alexander in year Y, have each conquered half of the world, it means only that it is so said in some of the written sources.

There are no answers to simple questions:

When were these primary sources written?

Where and by whom were these sources found?

It is wrongly presumed that ancient and medieval chronicles, written by Genghis Khan's or Alexander the Great contemporaries and eyewitnesses, are readily available. Actually, only sources written hundreds or even thousands of years after the events are there, compiled mostly in the 16th 18th centuries, or even later.

As a rule, these sources suffered considerable multiple manipulations, falsifications and distortions by editing. At the same time,

innumerable originals of ancient documents under various pretexts were destroyed in Europe under various pretexts.

The names of persons and geographical sites often changed meaning and location during the course of the centuries.

Geographical locations became clearly defined on maps only with the advent of printing.

This made possible the circulation of identical copies of the same map for purposes of the military, navigation, education and governance tasks.

Historians from Oxford say: "hey, everybody knows that Julius Caesar lived in the first century B.C.

`Julius Caesar' statement is only a point of view as

there is simply no irrefutable documentary proof that Julius Caesar or any other great name of antiquity ever existed.

Better than that - extremely rare sources that can be reliably dated back to the 10th-14th centuries A D, do not show the polished picture of classical history.

They show a picture both contradictory and confusing.

All methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts are erroneous:

Radio-carbon C14 method produces dating with exactitude of plus minus 1500 years, therefore it is too crude for dating of events in historical timeframe!

The Almagest tractate, which lies as corner stone contemporary chronology, compiled in the 2nd century A D by Ptolemy, the founding father of astronomy, contains astronomical data of 9th to 16th century!

The Bronze Age,that has supposedly began 5000 years ago. Bronze is made of 90% copper and 10% tin, but the technology for tin extraction dates back to 14th century A D!.

All eclipses contained in manuscripts, like Thucydides one, relating 'ancient' events have exclusively medieval dating. All horoscopes cut in stone or painted in Egyptian temples, like Dendera have exclusively early medieval dating solutions.

Not quite what you have learned in school? Open your eyes, and, you will find sufficient proof to reach step by step the inevitable conclusion that the classical chronology is false and therefore, that the history of ancient and medieval world universally accepted today, is also false. Have a fresh outlook on everything said or printed about "ancient" and "enigmatic" Roman, Greek and Egyptian, medieval as well as all other "lost and found" civilizations.

Antiquity and Dark Ages are phantoms invented in the 16th 18th and polished in 19th 20thcenturies. Human civilization is in fact barely 1000 years old!

This book will change your perception of History forever!
What if Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt were invented during Renaissance?
What if The Old Testament was a rendition of events of the Middle Ages?
What if Jesus Christ was born in 1053 and crucified in 1086 AD?
Sounds Unbelievable?
Not after you've read "History: Fiction or Science?" by Anatoly Fomenko, the genius mathematician.
Armed with astronomy and computers Anatoly Fomenko turns History into a rocket science.

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

Frontiers of Illusion: Science, Technology, and the Politics of Progress

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Best Starting Point for Skeptics
Important book for democratizing science
Insightful and challenging work on science and policy

Frontiers of Illusion: Science, Technology, and the Politics of Progress
Daniel Sarewitz
Manufacturer: Temple University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1566394163

Book Description

For the past fifty years, science and technology—supported with billions of dollars from the U.S. government—have advanced at a rate that would once have seemed miraculous, while society's problems have grown more intractable, complex, and diverse. Yet scientists and politicians alike continue to prescribe more science and more technology to cure such afflictions as global climate change, natural resource depletion, overpopulation, inadequate health care, weapons proliferation, and economic inequality.

Daniel Sarewitz scrutinizes the fundamental myths that have guided the formulation of science policy for half a century—myths that serve the professional and political interests of the scientific community, but often fail to advance the interests of society as a whole. His analysis ultimately demonstrates that stronger linkages between progress in science and progress in society will require research agendas that emerge not from the intellectual momentum of science, but from the needs and goals of society.

Customer Reviews:

Best Starting Point for Skeptics.......2005-10-19

This is the best starting points for skeptics who wonder if science is all it is cracked up to be, or for cheerleaders of science too prone to claim science will solve all our problems.

It does not, however, provide a complete picture. Three other books are helpful:

Science, Money, and Politics by Daniel Greenberg is the best over-all review, has a strong ethical component, and shows how the competition for money, rather than scientific progress, is diverting scarce resources and frustrating needed advances.

The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney is the book that is the most compelling on the perversions of the extremist Republicans (I am a moderate Republican). Read this first or last, depending on your disposition.

Finally, Investing in Innovation, edited by Lewis Bramscomb and James Keller, brings together a range of views crossing the environment within which scientific research takes place, evaluationg specific programs and policy tools, and making recommendations (all of which have been ignored by the current Bush Administration).

I take three bottom lines from these four books together:

1) We are spending too much on military science & research.

2) Neither Congress nor the Executive have a serious strategy for prioritizing problems, finding private sector partners, and providing seed money for innovative solutions.

3) Both Congress and the Executive, as well as the public and the media, are incredibly ignorant about what science can and cannot do, and where all the money is going to generally poor effect.

4) This is all so important that Science, like Intelligence, needs its own Supreme Court. I am persuaded we need a new form of hybid public agency that is fully independent of the Executive, receiving a percentage of the total disposable budget (say 3%) and hence not subject to Congression pressures.

I want to stress that this book is an off-set, but should not be read alone. It raises some very important ethical and common sense political prioritization issues, but viewed alone, is too negative. If you buy only one book, buy Greenberg's.

Important book for democratizing science.......2004-07-10

The author states in the preface "I here baldly and unapologetically state that I recognize the scientific method to be a valid technique for approaching what I am pleased to term an objective understanding of the physical and natural world. 'This belief, however, offers no apriory comfort to anyone who would try to answer such questions as What types of scientific knowledge should society choose to pursue? How should such choices be made and by whom? How should society apply this knowledge, once gained? How can "progress" in science and technology be defined and measured in the context of broader social and political goals? And indeed, it is precisely these sorts of question that underlie and motivate this book".

Although I do not agree that there is such a thing as THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD (but a variety of scientific methods) and although I do not agree that specific kinds of methods garantees truth and objectivity, I understand the author's need to distinguish such narrow methodological issues from the broader issues concerning the relations between science and society. These last questions are important in democratic societies, why libraries, masse communication and other institutions, which are supposted to support democracy should make an effort to dissiminate this kind of literature.

Insightful and challenging work on science and policy.......1998-11-19

Not for the thin-skinned! This is a thoughtful and convincing set of arguments as to how and why the U.S. scientific research system often fails to serve the public interest. We'd all be better off if researchers and policy-makers absorbed the lessons in this work.

Innovation and Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It

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it's OK
Patent Medicine
Eloquent

Innovation and Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It
Adam B. Jaffe , and Josh Lerner
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0691127948

Book Description

The United States patent system has become sand rather than lubricant in the wheels of American progress. Such is the premise behind this provocative and timely book by two of the nation's leading experts on patents and economic innovation.

Innovation and Its Discontents tells the story of how recent changes in patenting--an institutional process that was created to nurture innovation--have wreaked havoc on innovators, businesses, and economic productivity. Jaffe and Lerner, who have spent the past two decades studying the patent system, show how legal changes initiated in the 1980s converted the system from a stimulator of innovation to a creator of litigation and uncertainty that threatens the innovation process itself.

In one telling vignette, Jaffe and Lerner cite a patent litigation campaign brought by a a semi-conductor chip designer that claims control of an entire category of computer memory chips. The firm's claims are based on a modest 15-year old invention, whose scope and influenced were broadened by secretly manipulating an industry-wide cooperative standard-setting body.

Such cases are largely the result of two changes in the patent climate, Jaffe and Lerner contend. First, new laws have made it easier for businesses and inventors to secure patents on products of all kinds, and second, the laws have tilted the table to favor patent holders, no matter how tenuous their claims.

After analyzing the economic incentives created by the current policies, Jaffe and Lerner suggest a three-pronged solution for restoring the patent system: create incentives to motivate parties who have information about the novelty of a patent; provide multiple levels of patent review; and replace juries with judges and special masters to preside over certain aspects of infringement cases.

Well-argued and engagingly written, Innovation and Its Discontents offers a fresh approach for enhancing both the nation's creativity and its economic growth.

Customer Reviews:

it's OK.......2007-06-04

Since the authors are economists I was hoping for an economic analysis of our current patent system like Schiff in his "Industrialization without National Patents" does for the international patent system of the 1800s. Instead it is a work of persuasion meant to sell the author's policy suggestions.

This means that the authors spend a lot of time talking about silly granted patents even though the authors later admit such patents are pretty unavoidable. No patent office has the resources to avoid granting some bad patents.

The author's policy suggestions include a revised reexamination system where patent owners would have to post $50,000 bond to defend a reexamination. I am no phyllis schlafly, but such a system would really favor big companies.

The authors are right that the creation of the CAFC in 1982 has resulted in a strengthening of patents. A lot of this is just a result of a new post-1982 uniformity in the case law.

Some signs of the waning of patents are showing. The CAFC, and now the supreme court, are ruling more for defendants in patent lawsuits. Additionally, in the patent office, the allowance rate of patents has declined from a peak of 71% in 2000 to 54% in 2006.

Patent Medicine.......2006-05-31

Begining with unsupported assertions about the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and overblown conclusions about the consequences of changes in funding for the Patent and Trademark Office, the authors offer cures for diseases they do not understand.

I haven't seen or heard it much lately, but, when I grew up, "patent medicine" was synonymous with quackery and worthless nostrums. It is, indeed, ironic that they chose that very term to head the section in which they set out the goals of their book.

Eloquent.......2004-12-10

This book presents a clear, concise and convincing argument that subtle changes in U.S. laws starting in 1982 have broken a patent system that was working reasonably well until then. It will be more effective at convincing the average person than most other attempts have been, both because of its style and because it shows that the changes which broke the system shouldn't have been expected to help anyone other than patent lawyers. Their analysis will be useful in helping to avoid the takeover of other agencies by special interests.
Their description of how the system should be fixed is less impressive. Their summary of proposed changes strangely fails to include undoing the change in appeals court jurisdiction which they suggest was a primary cause of the problems. Their argument in favor of patenting software, business practices, etc. is more radical than they seem to realize, as it appears to imply that patents should also be extended to mathematical theorems, yet they act as if the burden of proof should be on their critics.
Their confidence that a traditional patent system is better than no patents is unconvincing (but they do a good job of explaining why it is hard to know what the best system is). They support their position by a few examples such as Xerox, whose copier wouldn't have been invented as it was without patent protection. But it's much harder than they imply to determine that a copier wouldn't have been invented some other way a few years later.

The Laplace Distribution and Generalizations: A Revisit with Applications to Communications, Economics, Engineering, and Finance (Progress in Mathematics)

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The Laplace Distribution and Generalizations: A Revisit with Applications to Communications, Economics, Engineering, and Finance (Progress in Mathematics)
Samuel Kotz , Tomasz Kozubowski , and Krzystof Podgorski
Manufacturer: Birkhäuser Boston
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0817641661

Book Description

This monograph focuses on the importance of the Laplace distribution and describes the inferential and modeling advantages that this distribution, together with its generalizations and modifications, offers. After presenting an historical introduction to the subject, the authors collect and present in a systematic way the univariate Laplace distribution, knowledge of which until now has been scattered in the vast statistical, engineering, and mathematical literature. The multivariate and skewed Laplace distribution are discussed here for the first time in detailed monograph form. Generalizations of Laplace distributions and stochastic processes to which they lead are presented as well. Many results, particularly those on the multivariate and skewed Laplace distribution, appear in print for the first time. The exposition systematically unfolds with many examples, tables, illustrations, and exercises. A comprehensive index and extensive bibliography also make this book an ideal text for a senior undergraduate and graduate seminar on statistical distributions, or for a short half-term academic course in statistics, applied probability, and finance. Key to the growing interest in the Laplace distribution are its applications, in particular, financial applications. The book covers interesting and recent applications of models based on the Laplace distribution, and will serve as a guide to development in this area of applied research for a broad audience of statisticians, finance experts, economists, engineers, and health scientists. Finally, in opening a new field of research in the theory of statistical distributions, The Laplace Distribution and Generalizations should strongly appeal to those working in theoretical or applied probability theory.

Progress in Tourism Marketing (Advances in Tourism Research)

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Progress in Tourism Marketing (Advances in Tourism Research)

Manufacturer: Elsevier Science
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0080450407

Book Description

The aim of this book are two-fold: (1) to evaluate the current progress of theoretical approaches to tourism marketing and (2) to show the ways to further develop the concept of tourism marketing for application within tourist destinations and individual businesses and evaluate its potential impact on performance improvement. The structure is based upon the inclusion of an introduction and four main parts, namely IT marketing, destination competitiveness, image measurement, and consumer behaviour. There is a brief introduction for each part prior to the discussion of specific chapters just to make the readers familiar with their content. The editors believe that there is a need for information on how to better apply both traditional and contemporary marketing tools in order to be more competitive within the international arena.

Metin Kozak serves as an Associate Professor of Marketing in the School of Tourism and Hotel Management, Mugla University, Turkey. Also, he is a visiting fellow in the Department of Marketing, University of Namur, Belgium. Following a successful career within the last five years (since the approval of PhD degree in 2000), Metin has received two awards to mark his achievements. In 2001, his PhD dissertation on benchmarking was nominated, by the EFQM- EU, among the best three PhD studies on TQM. In 2004, by a committee of the Turkish Tourism Investors Association, he was awarded the grand prize of the tourism researcher of the year 2003 in Turkey. He has published mainly in tourism journals and authored a book on Destination Benchmarking. His main research interests focus on consumer behavior, benchmarking, competitiveness, cross-cultural research, destination management and marketing, and European tourist markets.

Luisa Andreu is Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Department of Marketing, University of Valencia, Spain. She obtained her Master's degree in Tourism from the International Centre for Tourism, Bournemouth University, UK, and a Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Valencia, Spain. She is a member of the Spanish Association of Scientifics in Tourism. She has published various articles in Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, among others. She has presented papers at several conferences organized by the European Marketing Academy, Academy of Marketing Science, CPTHL, and State of the Art: Tourism. She has also involved in numerous academic and industrial projects. Her research interests include consumer behavior and cross-cultural issues in service marketing.

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Health care and aging

Integrates ethical thought, social justice issues. Great!

What Kind Of Life: The Limits of Medical Progress
Daniel Callahan
Manufacturer: Georgetown University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Setting Limits: Medical Goals in an Aging Society With "a Response to My Critics"

Sick To Death and Not Going to Take It Anymore!: Reforming Health Care for the Last Years of Life (California / Milbank Books on Health and the Public)

Love and Power: The Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics

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Life's Dominion: An Argument About Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom

ASIN: 0878405739

Customer Reviews:

Health care and aging.......2000-04-22

This book is a must read for those with an interest in geriatric health care allocation. Unfortunately, after about the first 100 pages, the book seems to just say the same thing over and over; namely, agism is ethically justified. I wonder if the author will still buy into this when he is of the old old.

Integrates ethical thought, social justice issues. Great!.......1997-07-03

I thought Callahan successfully brings together some of the most thought about and talked about issues of medical ethics today with the social reality of life in the US and the medical system we have currently. Must read for medical professionals.

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Modernization Theory is Not a Dead Horse
Post modernization and post materialism expanded
best data on global change
Opinion Polls are no substitute for objective research

Modernization and Postmodernization
Ronald Inglehart
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
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ASIN: 069101180X

Book Description

Ronald Inglehart argues that economic development, cultural change, and political change go together in coherent and even, to some extent, predictable patterns. This is a controversial claim. It implies that some trajectories of socioeconomic change are more likely than others--and consequently that certain changes are foreseeable. Once a society has embarked on industrialization, for example, a whole syndrome of related changes, from mass mobilization to diminishing differences in gender roles, is likely to appear. These changes in worldviews seem to reflect changes in the economic and political environment, but they take place with a generational time lag and have considerable autonomy and momentum of their own. But industrialization is not the end of history. Advanced industrial society leads to a basic shift in values, de-emphasizing the instrumental rationality that characterized industrial society. Postmodern values then bring new societal changes, including democratic political institutions and the decline of state socialist regimes. To demonstrate the powerful links between belief systems and political and socioeconomic variables, this book draws on a unique database, the World Values Surveys. This database covers a broader range than ever before available for looking at the impact of mass publics on political and social life. It provides information from societies representing 70 percent of the world's population--from societies with per capita incomes as low as $300 per year to those with per capita incomes one hundred times greater and from long-established democracies with market economies to authoritarian states.

Customer Reviews:

Modernization Theory is Not a Dead Horse.......2007-08-12

Modernization Theory holds that industrialization, and the subsequent economic development is linked with cultural, political, and economic changes. Additionally, Modernization Theory argues that these linkages and changes can and do form coherent and predictable patterns. However, one of the critiques of Modernization Theory has to do with causality. Both the Marxist and Weberian schools are in agreement with the basic premise that economic, political, and cultural change form coherent patterns, but diverge in regards to the catalysts of said change. The Marxist camp argues that economic and technological change drives political and social change, while the Weberian school postulates that cultural aspects drive economic and political change.

Inglehart, however, suggests that the deterministic arguments posed by both the Marxists and Weberians are oversimplified. Rather, Inglehart argues that economic, political, and cultural variables are mutually dependent and intertwined. He writes, "if you know one component you can predict the other components with far better than random success" (331). Inglehart further critiques Modernization Theory for its emphasis on linearity. Rather than moving in one continuous direction, the author argues that there is a fundamental change in values and motivations, this being the shift to Postmodernization.

With these two critiques, as well as rebuke of the supposed ethnocentricity of the theory, and the assumption that Modernization leads to democracy, Inglehart pursues a new model of economic, political, and cultural change which composes his Modernization and Postmodernization thesis.

Inglehart argues that during the Modernization phase a society undergoes economic, cultural, and political changes. "Economic development is linked with a syndrome of changes that includes not only industrialization, but also urbanization, mass education, occupational specialization, bureaucratization, and communications development, which in turn are linked with still broader cultural, social, and political changes" (8).

We see individuals moving away from status based on ascription, towards status based on achievement; we see a move towards rational-legal authority structures, etc. Additionally, during this time, individual values are based on achieving economic security and material gain. However, as Inglehart points out, advanced industrial societies eventually reach a level of marginal rate of return on economic growth. When a society reaches this threshold, we begin to see a fundamental change in values and institutional structures, or a move to a Postmodern Society. Inglehart writes, "Postmodernism is the rise in new values and lifestyles, with greater toleration for ethnic, cultural, and sexual diversity and individual choice concerning the kind of life one wants to lead" (23). In short, economic growth eventually reaches a point of marginal utility and accompanying value and motivational changes occur.

In explaining the Postmodern transition, Inglehart discusses extensively the theory of Intergenerational Value Change. He writes, "This shift in worldview and motivations springs from the fact that there is a fundamental difference between growing up with awareness that survival is precarious, and growing up with the feeling that one's survival is precarious, and growing up with the feeling that one's survival can be taken for granted" (31). The post-WWII generation experienced high levels of economic growth coupled with the rise of the welfare state. This granted them a great deal of economic and social security. This security allowed society to pursue Postmodern values. The transition to Postmodern values has eroded many of the institutions which characterized industrial/modern society: (1) in a secure environment, people seek the stability of a strong government - such rational-legal authority is no longer in the Postmodern society; (2) this environment of stability/security lessens the importance placed on economic growth; although the Postmodern society has lower rates of economic growth, the subjective happiness of a society is high; (3) traditional social structures also decline in importance, i.e. less importance is placed on religion, the familial structure, sexual norms etc.

Post modernization and post materialism expanded.......2006-11-06

Inglehart, one of the pioneers of modern political culture research, has expanded his previous studies, based on mainly US and European research to include those countries where the World Value Surveys are conducted. The book is well illustrated and written, empirically solid and it goes without saying that the traditional paradigm used now gets a more general validation with the inclusion of new countries.

The ecologial variables included now also expands the implications of what the change to post-materialist values means. Still, a considerable part of the book, especially the theoretical part, gives a "deja vue" experience. It would be nice to get some really new ideas from the discoverer of post-materialism, and not just new amassment of data. But granted that the samples used in this book are from completely new and different contexts, it is satifying to see that the post-materialist silent revolution was not really a 1968 cohort industrialist phenomenon, something that critics have said of Ingleharts previous works. The book updates the more theoretically innovative Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society, and can be used as a course book in political culture classes.

best data on global change.......2006-10-06

Ignore the only other review about this book, which is tremendously silly and obviously written from a right-wing perspective. It is not true that Inglehart opposes materialist and postmaterialist values against tradition: in fact he creates a multi-dimensional model in which the opposition between materialist and postmaterialist values make up one axis, while the opposition between traditional and secular-rational authority constitutes a separate axis. Thus, the US is situated in this model as a society whose people prioritize postmaterialist values but ALSO favor (more slightly) traditional over secular-rational forms of authority. This combination of postmaterialism and tradition seems to explain a lot about Americans today: they increasingly favor qualitative values like free expression, choice, and life satisfaction over quantitative values like money and technology, and yet they adhere more to traditional forms of authority like religion, the family, and nation while being distrustful of secular institutions and the government.

Inglehart's thesis is that cultural, political, and economic changes cluster together and change in relatively predictable ways. Societies undergo tremendous changes as they modernize, industrialize, bureaucratize, urbanize, and so forth, but then they hit a point of diminishing returns when the survival of most people can be guaranteed and scarcity is no longer an issue. This is the point where people seek out postmaterialist values, because the search for more money leaves them existentially empty, and so they seek out more substantive forms of satisfaction and meaning. Perhaps this is the only common ground among Americans of the blue and red states: obviously they aren't simply voting in terms of economic self-interest (in which case their political affiliations would be reversed) but rather on the basis of cultural values: ecology and tolerance for the blue states, God and nation for the red states.

Yes, Inglehart's politics are somewhat leftist, and he does argue that his data supports much of what Marx had to say about modernization, but above all he is a scientist and an empiricist who is most concerned with perfecting his techniques of measurement. That's why it's so ridiculous to dismiss him as politically biased as the previous reviewer and a number of other critics seem to do. The amount of data is this book is astounding. And yet it is still imminently readable, and unlike so much other social science, does not fetishize its methods of data analysis as an end in itself.

The only reason to give this work 4 stars instead of 5 is that I think Inglehart has a hard time explaining the resurgence of fundamentalism that has swept through the world recently. He somewhat persuasively argues that Islamic fundamentalism has taken hold in societies that may be oil-rich but certainly aren't modernized, but when it comes to the US he maintains that religion is declining in influence and that the Christian right is just more organized today in defense of its evaporating power. I'd really like to believe that. But if that's true, why do so many of my damn students wear crosses and "WWJD" bracelets?

Opinion Polls are no substitute for objective research.......1999-03-11

Ronald Inglehart looks at a database of changes in public opinion in 43 countries and finds that, around 1990, a majority of people in the U.S. and other advanced industrial societies ranked "postmodern" or "postmaterialist" values above "modern" or "materialist" values. In third place and rapidly disappearing is "traditional" values.

These new attitudes have important implications for marketing products and for politics. The rise of Green parties in Europe, for example, is an expected development from these underlying cultural changes. (A similar development has been delayed in the U.S. because we don't allow fractional voting or proportional representation.)

For people interested in politics, this is familiar territory. It was covered by William Maddox and Stuart Lilie's 1984 book, "Beyond Liberal and Conservative: Reassessing the Political Spectrum," Alvin Toffler's work, David Boaz's edited collection for the Cato Institute, "Left, Right and Babyboom: America's New Politics," (1986) and many editorials in Reason, Forbes FYI, and similar publications. Inglehart says this is the first empirical research to find these trends are shared by all developed countries, that postmodernists now outnumber modernists and traditionalists, and that culture can change or be changed by economic conditions.

I found this to be a valuable piece of research, but was repeatedly put off by the decidedly leftist slant of Inglehart's work. The book is riddled with references to Marxist history, economics, psychology, and sociology. He is often saying Marx "made an important contribution in this area" but that recent events have proven him wrong, but perhaps his underlying theory was correct. The conservative "goal" of "laissez faire capitalism" is seldom mentioned without referring to the "savage injustices" that accompanied that brief period when such a system existed, and how government intervention "saved" us from this plight.

Inglehart has similar opinions on religious belief, which is variously defined as reactionary, nativist, and potentially violent. The idea that an organized religion would be hospitable to reason and science appears never to cross Inglehart's mind, though any student of history (or contemporary Catholic) knows otherwise.

A few tips of an author's ideological hat doesn't hurt an otherwise good piece of work, but this author's anti-market and anti-religious beliefs are on display on every page. I was left doubting his ability to report the truth.

The opinion surveys Inglehart relies on are problematic in many ways, some of which he admits. What does it mean when someone says he puts a "higher priority" on emotion or ideas than on reason and science? Clearly not that he wishes to live in a society without reason and science. Maybe he is sending a signal to the pollster that he is trying to get in touch with his spiritual self? Or maybe he is uncomfortable being called upon to defend reason and science, not having had any training in either, and would rather defend imagination and emotion, for which any answer is the right one?

Similarly, the whole ranking exercise is dubious because there are no consequences for ranking too highly things one might wish for or admire in abstract but seldom use or respect in practice. This is a common failure of opinion surveys. Inglehart's citations purporting to show how values influence behavior is off the mark; we know they do, the question is whether his ranking exercise accurately captures those values that influence behavior.

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This book is intended to give readers detailed information and perspectives on the reform of financial management reform practices in a variety of national settings around the world. The chapters explore the reform agenda in each nation and factors that stimulated change. Each chapter addresses the extent of the influence of New Public Management concepts and practices on reform implementation. The nations whose experience is represented in this book are among the most often cited examples of progressive change to be examined and perhaps emulated by governments in other nations. In the introductory chapter the editors address the question whether and to what extent the financial management reforms detailed in the book reveal real progress or a progression of questions and dilemmas faced but not solved over the past several decades.

CONTENTS: International Developments in Public Sector Financial Management: A Question of Progress Or A Progression Of Questions? Contradictions and Challenges, Christopher Humphrey, James Guthrie, L. R. Jones, Olov Olson. Recent Public Sector Financial Management Change in Australia: Implementing the Market Model, Linda M English, James Guthrie, Lee D Parker. New Public Management Reforms in Canada: Success and Failure? David J Cooper, Ken Ogata. Eastern European Nations and New Public Financial Management, Emidia Vagnoni. Npm and The Irish Public Sector: From Reluctant Reformer to Statutory Codification, Geraldine Robbins, Irvine Lapsley. Public Sector Financial Management Reform in Italy, Riccardo Mussari. New Zealand Public Sector Management and Accounting Reforms: The Hidden Agenda, Susan Newberry, June Pallot. Public Sector Financial Management Reform in Spain, Vicente Pina, and Lourdes Torres. Public Sector Accounting Reforms in A Welfare State in Transition: The Case Of Sweden, Olov Olson, Kerstin Sahlin-Andersson. A Reflection on Accounting Reforms in Dutch Government, Henk J. ter Bogt, G. Jan van Helden. Financial Management in the Uk Public Sector: Historical Development, Current Issues and Controversies, Danny S. L. Chow, Christopher G. Humphrey, Peter B. Miller. Contemporary Public Financial Management And Budget Reform in the U.S. Federal Government, L. R. Jones, Jerry L. McCaffery.

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Agricultural Research in an Era of Adjustment: Policies, Institutions, and Progress (Edi Seminar Series)

Manufacturer: World Bank Publications
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The behavior of interest rates;: A progress report, (National Bureau of Economic Research. General series)
Joseph W Conard
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